Novell finally rolls-out Netware clustering

Novell finally will roll-out its clustering services for NetWare 5 this week, after more than two years of struggling with delivery deadlines.

The software will support clusters of eight four-processor servers, scaling to 32 servers, Novell officials claim. It has been tested on up to 12 clusters. Clustering services are most frequently used for servers that host Web content, application and data rather than file and print services.

Servers using NetWare Cluster Services are connected with Fast Ethernet adaptors as well as a Fibre Channel hub or switch and a disk storage subsystem. Load balancing, which helps speed up Internet traffic and automatic failure recovery features, is also included in the software.

Neil McDonald, an analyst with the GartnerGroup, believes the software will give users a reason to stay with NetWare and not migrate to Windows NT. But he pointed out that it does not allow clustering as a single system image (SSI), and it requires Novell Storage Services, a technology that lets the server come up and load data quickly. Novell officials said support for SSI may be included in the next release.

With NetWare Cluster Services, Novell is finally providing a high-availability solution for NetWare 5. McDonald said: "High availability is becoming more of an issue across the board, especially with the highly publicised eBay and stock trading outages." He added that Novell needed a top-end high availability product and since third parties weren't building it, Novell had to do it itself.

The NetWare Cluster Services works with Novell Directory Services and has been tested with servers from Compaq, Dell, Hewlett Packard and IBM. Extra security can also be maintained by implementing RAID Level 5 and storage can be dynamically set apart if necessary. Novell expects to ship the Cluster Services for NetWare 5 at the end of September.